Damian Lazarus: Devil Night tour diary entry #1

Diary Post #1

“Hello, and welcome to my Devil Night tour 2008, a five week series of diary entries, pictures, videos and silly nonsense, all recorded exclusively for Beatportal.

I will be reporting from the frontline of weird and wonderful musical nights out and introducing you to some of the bizarre and odd things that happen to me whilst travelling around North and Central America.

For those of you that don’t know, I am Damian Lazarus, friend to goblins, elves and wizards around the globe and wearer of silly hats.

I have just moved to Los Angeles as I heard it was the place most likely to experience something new.

Anyway, please enjoy the following broadcasts, check out some of the music I am playing right now but above all, don’t take this too seriously - I’m only a fucking DJ.

This will be a unique tour diary, not all of it will be true and it probably won’t entice you out to come and see me play either, but hey, who cares when you can sit at home and read all about it instead?

Weekend One: Chicago & Denver

Having just moved from London to LA, I had just a few days to get my studio set up before setting off on tour and I had some trouble with my decks.

Every record I played sounded extra wonky, kind of warped and wobbly; the beats were in time but there was something odd going on.

I decided I may be running them at the wrong voltage and so I opened up the platter and switched the voltage screw from 110 to 240 and lo and behold, that cured them.

feeling wicked in Chicago

Note to self: Next time I play an especially twisted afterhours, bring the screwdriver…

Having started my own podcast/radio shows a year ago, I have recently been checking out some other shows during long plane journeys, I’m a particular fan of the Adam & Joe show on BBC6Music and I often find myself laughing out loud, much to the amusement of fellow passengers.

I left LA in blistering 90 degree heat and arrive four hours later in Chicago in the midst of a freak lightning storm.

I meet my friend Sasha Navarro for dinner and we head to the excellent Spy Bar for the first night of this year’s Devil Night Tour.

Hac Lee and Lee Foss build up the room nicely and then I step up and experiment with bundles of brand new music.

Having just relocated I have taken just under three weeks off DJing and tonight is the first night back, so there was a little bit of trial and error going on.

Lazpod fans

Happily everything seemed to work real good with the exception of one very upfront remix of a track by a good friend of mine that didn’t quite cut the mustard.

I’ll tell him if he asks, if he doesn’t I’ll leave it at that…

During the set I had one girl come into the booth and flash her pants at me and another offer me $100 to play a hip hop record - there’s always one!

Jamie Jones made something new for his album this week which I played unfinished and it is an absolute belter.

I ended the night with James Holden’s Radiohead remix, an experimental treat for the Chicago massive.

Afterwards I go with friends to a big loft apartment, there are a few people falling over and I, uncharacteristically, take a quick exit and head to the hotel for a whopping seven hours sleep.

I arrive in Denver to find the friendly face of J Majik waiting for me in the limo (yes, we do get driven around in limos around America).

I haven’t seen J for a long time so it was nice to catch up - he and his girl have just moved to Miami as my lady and I have done in LA, so we had lots of stuff to chat about; always a pleasure to talk non-music stuff to other DJs as conversations between DJs can so often turn into geeky boring techie nonsense.

Beta is the new club owned by one of Beatport’s founders and it is extremely forward thinking for America.

the freaks come out at Beta

State of the art Funktion One sound in the main room and Watergate style light show in room 2.

Tonight I play this pre-Halloween party in the smaller room to a great crowd of mentalists.

People are shouting at me to “play weirder” which I take as a cue to do exactly that.

A lot of people come up and say hi tonight, which is great, and there seems to be a lot of ardent Lazpod fans here in Denver.

I have a few technical issues at the start of the night as the bassbins are not happy about dealing with my records, I’m forced to ditch these and play only CDs, which is unfortunate but manageable.

At the end of the party there is a very strong vibe in the room and I leave with H-Foundation’s Hippee and his crew for a fun get together at a nearby house.

Around midday I figure I should head back to the hotel for a couple of hours sleep before my flight home.

On the way, we hit a police barrier and see thousands of people ahead of us in the park.

We slip the car into a parking spot and I walk I into the park to witness a little bit of history being made.

Barack Obama is addressing 100,000 people here and I get totally entranced by his closing remark, that “You and I will change this country and change this world,” very powerful and moving stuff.

I pass out on my bed and sleep through the alarm and knocks on my bedroom door, I miss my flight home and have to pay a few hundred dollars to make a later flight back home.

It’s been a super start to Devil Night. Next week join me in LA and Mexico City for the big spooky shenanigans…

Damian“